


Apologies and Gratitude: I Can't Lose You, Too

by JennTheMastermind



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Based on a Tumblr Post, Bellamy admitting his feelings for Clarke hahahaha, Canon Divergence, F/M, i think its angst, maybe angst?, these tags are a mess but you get it, they're so cute they're gross really, this is just after 2x08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-03
Updated: 2015-03-03
Packaged: 2018-03-16 02:18:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3470714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JennTheMastermind/pseuds/JennTheMastermind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy can’t handle his feelings for Clarke anymore and everything comes out in a rush.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Apologies and Gratitude: I Can't Lose You, Too

**Author's Note:**

> This is based off of a post made by underbellamy on tumblr! If you want to see the specific post I'll post a link in the bottom notes to the version of this fic posted on my blog (truealphabellamy.tumblr.com) where there are links to the post and underbellamy's blog.

Apologies and gratitude were always some of the hardest things to say. To do so meant admitting he was wrong or that he was incapable. With the way he’d grown up, always having the responsibility of his sister’s welfare to force him to be self-reliant and cunning, Bellamy had rarely been in a situation where he’d had to do either. He never allowed anyone to do anything for him. He never allowed himself into a situation ending in him apologizing. Bellamy had never imagined he’d say both in one conversation to one person that wasn’t Octavia.

Yet, there he was: waiting to do so.

When he’d told Clarke he didn’t follow her orders – that he was going into Mount Weather - he’d asked her for a better reason to stay. Her response still echoed in his head: she couldn’t lose him, too; not like she had Finn.

At first, Bellamy had been struck speechless. He’d never admitted it, but the Princess gave him a strength that helped him continue on; it’s what helped him lead the hundred through the battle with the Gounders. He needed her reassurance, her mind, her skills, and her morality to fit everything he lacked; he needed Clarke. He couldn’t lose her either.

But, of course, such truths as that fit under gratitude because she’d supplied for him what he was incapable of doing himself. She’d stayed and tolerated his bullshit enough to help him back to the man his mother raised him to be. If she hadn’t done that, Bellamy didn’t want to think about how they would all be dead; a banner boasting “Whatever the Hell We Want” splattered with Sky People blood at the hands of the Grounders.

Later, he’d been angry she’d held him in the same regard as Finn; except she loved him in a way Bellamy was certain she didn’t think of him. She was wrong, he thought, because he was nothing like Finn. Spacewalker had gone on an obsessive mission to find Clarke, going on a killing spree of innocents. Then, Finn had been so bold and self-absorbed to search for forgiveness and solace. Of course there was guilt, but Finn turned it around on her. He never really paid for his actions, only ran away from the consequences until Clarke’s sympathy and desperateness forced her hand. Bellamy grew even bitterer knowing he helped Finn try to escape from his fate.

Even though Spacewalker gave himself to the Grounders after he’d given up on trying to accept his murderous actions and live with himself (as Bellamy had done after the worst trip he’d ever experienced), Bellamy had the urge to show he was not the same as Finn. As much as he needed Clarke, he didn’t need her thinking he could be her Spacewalker-substitute.

That’s why he and Lincoln attempted to get into Mount Weather, as Bellamy had told Clarke he wanted to.

In the end, Finn had only been concerned with his own redemption, forgiveness, and Clarke. Bellamy felt the need to act differently, to be concerned with saving his friends regardless of the danger. It’s who he was raised to be, who he’d grown up as, who he’d lost, and who Clarke had helped him find again. Just because the precarious truce with the Grounders was shattered and Finn was dead didn’t mean his priorities needed to change.

Bellamy had asked Lincoln along on the mission into Mount Weather because he knew where the entrance would be. He’d disagreed at first, spouting the same things Clarke had, but Octavia urged him into agreement after she explained it was her friends in the mountain, as well.

Neither he nor Lincoln knew things would go so poorly. There had been some sort of trap they hadn’t known was there. There were Reapers and Mountain Men bullets involved. Bellamy didn’t want to dwell on the details because of what’d happened to Lincoln. He was alive, but Bellamy had just been able to get him back to Camp Jaha before he bled out. Chancellor Griffin had saved his life.

It was on their return, after Lincoln had been traded from Bellamy’s shoulders to Abby’s makeshift operating table, that he heard Clarke had been captured by Grounders. When he went rushing toward the gates to find her he’d been stopped by Octavia. She’d told him Clarke had made her own escape; that she was still alive and in the camp. She’d also told him the only reason Clarke was in the position to be captured was because she was going after him.

Bellamy had been breathless then, too, and that’s when he wondered why it was easier for him to spring into action to save someone than it was for him to admit his happiness that they were already saved.

He’d hugged Octavia and she’d whispered thank you for bringing him back. Bellamy had only been able to wrap his arms tighter around his sister in response, apparently unable to reply to appreciation, as well. Still, he was proud of Octavia and glad she didn’t have the difficulty he did. It meant she grew up differently than he had; she hadn’t had to grow up fast from responsibilities which made her incapable of speaking an apology or thanks.

He felt a bit better knowing at least he raised his sister right; after everything he’d messed up along the way, like not expecting Clarke to follow.

And that was how he found himself outside the infirmary tent, his body becoming pained at having stayed still for so long. Octavia had told him Clarke was resting inside and he’d gone to see her right away. When he got there, however, he ended up frozen just to the side of the entrance; the same way he froze every time he was supposed to say I’m sorry or thank you.

Instead of having a stunned mind, however, Bellamy was swept up in all the memories he had of Clarke. His first impression of her was the same he had for all of the privileged on the Ark: spoiled, soft, and always looking for a way to keep the poor poorer and the rich richer. But that’d changed the longer they spent trying to keep the hundred alive from the different threats that arose each day.

He’d realized she wasn’t as much of a Princess as he’d thought. Her opinions were important and her medical skills were invaluable. The way people respected and followed her made him watch her more closely; that, and the aura of confidence she possessed. That’s when Bellamy started to respect her.

Then they’d taken their day trip to find supplies, not knowing there was an assassin trailing them. Clarke had helped save his life; not for the first time and not for the last. She’d told him she needed him and he was overcome with something he couldn’t describe for the first time. It made his heart beat loud in his ears and his breath quicken as his chest swelled with warmth. He was filled with an ecstatically horrifying feeling so dense he could cut it with his knife and still not make it to his heart.

He grew to trust her, even after she closed the drop ship door on him and Finn. He only admired her more. She was capable and strong; she did what he trusted and wanted her to do.

Still, Bellamy wanted to find her after, to see if she was alive. The feeling he’d had beside her and Dax’s body would always return when he thought of her and it vexed him constantly. He’d never have assumed it was because he wanted her to be with him again.

They’d searched for her for so long Bellamy hadn’t expected her to be in the one place they knew she wasn’t. When she’d hugged him at the entrance to Camp Jaha, he couldn’t think or move until the feeling forced his arms to hold her close.

When he was on watch around the campfire, her and Octavia sleeping, he’d finally found a peaceful moment to sort out the sensation. Bellamy watched the firelight dance across her bruised and beaten face, her blonde hair a mess but somehow still befitting a Princess like her, and he’d never been more grateful. His wordless appreciation somehow helped him accept the feeling was there and unfading, simply growing stronger as they did together.

Then she’d gone and said she can’t lose him, too, and now he realized something else about the sensation.

He felt his muscles protest vehemently his paralyzed state, the physical stress and mental anxiety too powerful to fight any longer. Bellamy’s feet moved of their own volition, carrying him into the empty tent where Clarke was lying on a cot, her eyes closed.

“I need you,” he confessed, standing feet from her.

She bolted upright, startled until her blue eyes finally found him. Clarke slowly moved her legs over the edge of the cot, her bare feet dangling inches above the ground. She grimaced as she moved and Bellamy noticed the bruises painting her legs with pain and the cuts along her face and arms; adding brown and red to the smattering of blue and purple.

“Bellamy,” she breathed out, settling her shoulders and looking at him the same way she had as she said she’d needed him.

It sounded as though she was going to continue, but it seemed all the years of choking on apologies and gratitude were displaced into this moment.

“I need you, too, Clarke,” he felt his throat strain but the words continued to tumble out, “and I can’t lose you either. I care about you so much it terrifies me because I never thought I would care for anyone other than Octavia. I have only ever wanted to protect and look after her. That was my job. She’s all I’ve ever had but now there’s you. Now, all I want to do is protect you, too, and I don’t want anything to happen to you. I can’t let anything happen to you, especially if it’s because of me.

“I’m sorry,” Bellamy paused, realizing the words had finally left his mouth.

Clarke sat still, looking at him without breathing a word.

Bellamy continued, feeling his racing pulse settle now that he’d said what he intended.

“I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. I was angry and when I am I don’t think straight,” he admitted. “I was angry at you, so you couldn’t be the one to set me right like you do.

“Thank you for that,” Bellamy swallowed. “I don’t think we’d be alive if you didn’t. But no matter what you did for me or for our friends, I was still angry at you for saying you couldn’t lose me, too. As if I was some replacement for Finn. I’m not him, Clarke. I can never be him. I needed to show you that.

“I just-” he stopped, shaking his head as he realized just what he was saying. Clarke had been through hell having to kill the person she loved and he couldn’t be making it better.

Bellamy looked at her, overcome once again by the sensation in his mind and chest, for her expression wasn’t pained or angry. Instead, her blue eyes inspired him in his honesty and her smile, however slight, was saturated with a joyful relief. He didn’t know if her silence was her being stunned at his survival or his speech. Either way, it gave him the strength he always felt around her. It instilled in him a final resolve.

“I just need you to be alright,” Bellamy breathed, catching Clarke’s eyes and unable to let them go. “I can’t lose you. I need you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Here's the link to the fic on my blog with all the other links!  
> http://truealphabellamy.tumblr.com/post/108242619252/apologies-and-gratitude-i-cant-lose-you


End file.
